Homestudy Part 1

 

     On Saturday, we had our first official step in the adoption process: the first homestudy meeting! I had mentioned in my last post that, for us, it worked out well to pick our agency before we did our homestudy. One thing I failed to say, though, is that you probably won't actually be able to apply to your agency until your homestudy is done. Every state is different, but just to give you an idea, our state requires that a social worker spend a minimum of 4 hours in your home (with everyone present who lives there), spread out over 2 different meetings.
      Several times last week, I was online searching different variations of the question "What to expect during your first homestudy meeting." I wasn't able to find very much! That is part of why I am doing this blog-- there isn't much information out there on what to expect in the very beginning stages of adoption. So, this post will be about what to expect during your first homestudy meeting, and how you can prepare for it.

Scheduling your homestudy

Very first steps

     I would consider us having been "in the process of starting the process" for just over one month now. As I mentioned in my introductory post, we had our first meeting with our social worker yesterday. I am going to use this post to recount the steps that have led up to that. We are doing a domestic adoption of a newborn not through the foster care system, so if you are considering international adoption or foster-to-adopt, this process will likely be a bit different.

Step 1: What type of adoption do we want? 

Why I am writing

Greetings!

My husband and I are just beginning the adoption process. I wanted to document things as they unfold for those who are trying to figure out what to expect. There are several resources out there for the big things: meeting the bio parents (if that will happen), legalization of the adoption, bonding with the baby, and discussing adoption with the child when s/he is older, to name a few. But there are very few people who talk about what to expect at the very beginning: getting started, picking an agency, that first meeting with a social worker, thinking about a homestudy, getting your mountain of paperwork in order, and those types of things. I'm the type of person who likes to know what to expect when I am going into a situation, so I want to try to remedy this! So, the goal of this blog is to document our experiences from the very beginning. We had our first meeting with our social worker yesterday (in our state, that is considered the first part of your home study), and I plan to write as everything unfolds. This will also be a place where I share updates with our friends and family.

Hopefully someone will find this to be at least somewhat helpful!

-Jess